Are my daily calories right?

The only way to know how a certain amount of weekly calories will affect you is to sit there for 4-6 weeks and review then and adjust as necessary. The calculator is a starting point however real world results are what matters.

I agree with the above in various ways.

Tom is right: Results tell the true story, and it takes 4-6 weeks (for those who don't have menstrual cycles) to have enough experience data to know what the results really are. Even at constant calories and activity, weight changes will vary from week to week, so a 4-6 week average is better.

The number MFP gives you is basically the average for similar people - those who have the same data points you entered into MFP. You're an individual. You may vary from average. Most people are close to those averages, a few noticeably off (high or low), and a rare few surprisingly high or low.

Follow the recommended calories for that 4-6 weeks. If you seem to be losing very fast, plus start feeling weak or fatigued for no other obvious reason, eat more, because those can be danger signals. Otherwise, stick it out, even if you don't seem to be losing at all. The average results will let you apply arithmetic to adjust your calorie intake as needed after that.

I agree that either including exercise in activity level, or not including it but logging it and eating those calories back, can work. It's good to log exercise thoughtfully, if going that route. If including exercise in in base calories in order to eat the same calorie level daily, I'd suggest using an outside TDEE calculator to get a maintenance calorie goal (then subtract calories for weight loss). I like this calculator, because it lets a person compare multiple different research-based estimating formulas, and has more activity levels with better descriptions than most: https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

As noted above, you don't want to double count the exercise. Most people here seem to think the boundary between sedentary and lightly active is somewhere around 5000 steps (daily life stuff, not exercise) or equivalent movement.

Spiriteagle has a good point, that with only 20 pounds to lose and currently at 160, a pound a week is slightly to the aggressive side. (But it isn't 1000 calories below maintenance daily. A pound of fat is roughly 3500 calories, so a pound a week is going to require roughly a 500 calorie daily cut, not 1000.)

It might be OK to go with a pound a week for the first 10 pounds-ish, then slow things down a bit to glide into maintenance calories. It depends a little on what your general health and overall life stress is right now. Less than ideal health, or high stress, let alone both, slower loss is probably a good plan. (An exception would be someone so overweight that their weight itself is a health risk, and who is under close medical supervision for deficiencies or complications. Fast loss might be better for them. But that doesn't sound like you.)

As context, this is advice coming from experience losing around 50 pounds at 59-60, female, 5'5", close to sedentary outside of intentional exercise, eating back all exercise calories; now age 69 and maintaining a healthy weight since loss, 134-point-something pounds this morning.

Best wishes!

I am 68 and I am doing the sedentary/track the exercise calories. I generally just get exercise from walking, and I walk about 5 miles a day in 4 or so walks. It gives me between 500 to 700 or sometimes more exercise calories to eat back. I generally don't eat back the exercise calories, or at least not most of them, but I do use them as a cushion for any inaccurate counting/measuring of calories. So far it seems to be working, I've lost more than 20lbs in the last 2-3 months, but I understand this will go slower as I get closer to my goal weight. I'm doing low carb, low salt, and so far have had little problem and little feelings of deprivation. It IS hard at Christmas, when everyone is pigging out on candy and cookies and other baked goods. But I eat a couple of sugar free chocolates in the evening, and sugar free gelatin, and that pretty much satisfies my junk food craving. I'd love to eat fluff filled donuts, coffee cakes and russian teacakes, chocolate chip cookies and christmas sugar cookies, but so far have managed to resist for the most part.